Following weeks of rumours the beleaguered Embracer Group has announced the sale of Gearbox, the developer best known for the Borderlands series, to Take-Two Interactive.
The deal is for $460m and is expected to close by the end of June this year, whereupon Tale-Two interactive will acquire ownership of Gearbox and several key IP such as Borderlands, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Homeworld, Band of Brothers and Duke Nukem. I mention Band of Brothers mostly in the vague hope that Gearbox will remember they own the IP and actually do something with it.
Embracer brought Gearbox into its blob-like mass in 2021 when it paid $363m in cash for the company. However, the deal included up to $1-billion more if Gearbox could hit financial goals.
“Today’s announcement marks the result of the final structured divestment process and is an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with notably lower net debt and improved free cash flow,” said Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors, attempting to politely describe his company’s continued nosedive into the Sun.
Not all of Gearbox will be moving over to a new owner though. While Gearbox Software, Gearbox Montreal and Gearbox Studio Quebec have all been sold to Take-Two, Gearbox Publishing San Francisco will be staying with Embracer and will be renamed.
Take-Two Interactive is obviously a massive name in the industry. They own Rockstar Games, a small little company nobody has heard of that’s due to publishing a new entry in a completely unknown franchise called Grand Theft Auto next year, which I’m sure nobody will care about. Take-wo also owns 2K Games which is important because 2K previously partnered with Gearbox to publish Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. In fact, Take-Two has certain long-term publishing rights when it comes to the Borderlands series, though exactly what those rights are was never clarified.
In a quote provided to Business Wire it was also confirmed that alongside the new Homeworld game, Gearbox is developing another entry in the Borderlands series. It was not specifically referenced as Borderlands 4, but that would be the likely bet.
As for Embracer, this is yet another step in their crusade to save themselves from self-destruction. The company spent years gobbling up everything in its path, its initial plan of becoming the number one creator and publisher of double-A and budget titles falling by the wayside when it began to buy bigger and bigger companies such as Gearbox. Now. Embracer finds itself in heavy debt and is selling off companies in a bid to reduce the money it owes. To day, Embracer has sold off the likes of Saber Interactive and shut down Eidos Montreal.